Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Space Marine Causes an Earthquake!

For those of you who aren't aware, the guys at Relic released a cross-platform demo forSpace Marine. I downloaded the Xbox version. While I was doing so, I felt a slight rumble through my house, which was odd, because blasting at the nearby quarry had already ended for the day. Naturally, I thought my excitement for my new 40k experience had just gotten the better of me. Turns out that there was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Virgina. I was surpised I felt it up in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, but reports say that folks as far North as Rhode Island felt some rumblings as well.

Luckily, there haven't been any reports of death, injury or any serious damage aside from a few shaken nerves. But as Michael Bolton would say, "Now back to the good part."

From two-ish levels I played in the demo, the game play like the beautiful product of a happily-ever-after love story between Gears of War and Dynasty Warrior. The ranged combat is fantastic with just the four weapons I had available to me (Bolt pistol, Bolter, Vengeance Launcher and Stalker-pattern Bolter) and I can't wait to see what others feature in the full game.

The melee combat took me a little while to get used to. I had only played games like Dynasty Warriors with a friend while we were waiting for the rest of our D&D party to show up, and even then, I just mashed buttons. That will get your ass pile-driven by an Ork Nob. The combo system requires a certain degree of timing to do it just right, but when you do, oh sweet Emperor, does it look and feel amazing.

The game comes out in less than two weeks, and I highly recommend pre-ordering. For those of you with an Xbox Live Gold subscription, there is quite literally no reason to not download this game at the earliest opportunity.